James McGovern – Enterprise Architecture Thought Follower

Leaders respect those who are superior to them and tries to learn something from them;
followers resent those who are superior to them and try to find chinks in their armor.

and James McGovern says: While there are lots of books on Ruby, none of them are good.

A leader says, “There ought to be a better way to do this;”
followers say, “That’s the way it’s always been done here.”

and James McGovern says: For shops that have mature enterprise architecture practices, they simply don’t allow insulting firms to propose architectures for them (most of the others that I don’t quote from his list fall in this category as well)

Leaders feel responsibile for more than their job;
followers say, “I only work here.”

and James McGovern says: Much of the guidance that the enterprises receive come from either big consulting firms such as Accenture, DiamondCluster, Wipro, Bearingpoint and others. If it isn’t on their radar then it probably won’t reach critical mass

A leader works harder than a follower and has more time;
a follower is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.

and James McGovern says: How many enterprise architects do you think that work for Fortune enterprises are actually reading the magazines that to date have discussed Ruby?

A leader goes through a problem;
a follower goes around it and never gets past it.

and James McGovern says: Those same vendors such as Sun, Microsoft, BEA, Oracle, CA, etc simply can’t make money off Ruby. If a business can’t make money off it, why would they even care?

Leaders listen;
followers just wait until it’s their turn to talk.

and James McGovern says: The productivity argument is lame. Do you know how many times my phone rings in a day with some poorly trained sales guy on the other end attempting to sell me something?

A leader works harder than a follower and has more time;
a follower is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.

and James McGovern says: Since Ruby is a new vendor and not represented by existing vendors I already do business with, do you think that I will spend more than three weeks in just negotiating the contract?

A leader says, “I’m good, but not as good as I ought to be;”
a follower says, “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people.”

and James McGovern says: I am one of the biggest supporters of agile methods but I too am not so delusional to know that many of its founders don’t practice transparency.

Note – my thoughts on this have nothing specific to do with Ruby. Ruby is just the symptom. It’s the appalling state that Enterprise Architecture has fallen to – preferring “Let’s not rock the boat” to “Let’s find new ways to make a remarkable enterprise” Are you listening, Sig? Seth? Greg?
(Hat tip: Obie Fernandez)